Home Birth: The Beginning

Shortly after Vanessa told me she was pregnant she let me know she wanted to do a "Home Birth."  Being a guy who was probably not thinking, I replied, "Sounds great."
Then I realized that was a literal term, she wanted to have Harper at home, in our bed, or a small swimming pool in our bedroom...Huh?  Like Little House on the Prarie?

I was skeptical but, Vanessa is pretty smart and given all we went through just to get this far along in her pregnancy, I was sure she was not making this decision lightly.  The next step was to find a midwife, she did.   was not really involved, I only cared that she was comfortable with whoever provided her care.

Our midwife Cindy was fantastic.  I asked her a short time ago what her first impression of me was. I figured she would say something like, "You seemed very cautious about the whole home birth process" or "Wow!, You had a lot of questions." 

What she actually replied was, "I just remember how sweet it was how you cried when you heard the heartbeat."

I did cry when I heard our little girls heartbeat.  I was also full of questions.  The thought of having a baby at home was pretty foreign to me and I really needed to connect the dots from, what I perceived was all the medical preparation available in a hospital, to our bedroom.  I wanted to know the plan for any and every possible emergency.  Cindy was very upfront, she said, "I've done this once or twice before." 

She had, and she had a very thorough path to follow in order for Harer to arrive safe and sound and Vanessa to be comfortable and secure.

The home birth journey can seem like going through uncharted waters but after seeing the level of care and detail Cindy provided, it was only because I was a crew member on that ship, Cindy was Captain.  If your significant other wants to have a homebirth, embrace your role as a crew member, you have an important job to do. 

In order for Cindy to deliver at home, she had multiple benchmarks Vanessa and Harper had to meet.  Blood tests had to show every marker in a safe range, Harper had to be healthy and positioned properly.  Harper's environment in the womb had to be without complications. We had supplies to buy and checklists to complete.  All of it done to ensure the best and safest possible conditions for Harper's arrival.

Having Harper at home was one of the best decisions we made.  Your partner is pregnant, not sick or injured.  As long as she and your baby are healthy, do everything you can to keep them out of the hospital.  That said, if your midwife tells you they need medical care, put all your thoughts aside and get them the care they need.

Harper wakes up...

Where to Begin?

One day late last March my wife, Vanessa, said, “I think I am pregnant…”

This in and of itself came as a bit of a shock because we were trying to make sure that didn’t happen. You recall I am 51 (she is much younger).

Vanessa and I were married October 13th, 2012, after being in a relationship for about seven years. We both have children from previous relationships, and we love them dearly. Neither of us thought about having a baby together. I had a vasectomy in 1994, we were both enjoying our work, her daughter was in high school and my boys were out of the house doing their thing, so we were pretty content.

I can’t really remember what ignited the spark, but sometime in early 2014 we talked about it and decided to see if it was even possible. Our first stop was the urologist to discuss a vasectomy reversal (more on that in a separate post). Obviously, the reversal was successful but between the reversal and Harper’s arrival, we faced six heartbreaking pregnancies ending in miscarriages. (I want to devote a whole post to miscarriages because they are devastating and rarely talked about.) We also had many wonderful events occur in our lives. We watched our children grow into adulthood, graduate from high school, go to college, join the military, get married, have children of their own. We saw job changes and we moved into our new home. We even adopted a third dog. Through it all, we tried to have a baby of our own.

Until we decided it was just not meant to be.

The toll on our hearts and Vanessa’s health was too high. So we held each other, cried a little and then put it in our rearview mirror, for about six months.

Welcome back to March 2018.

So Why Blog?

The road that led Harper's arrival has been interesting, to say the least, and I wanted to document it, mostly for her but also because there may be others considering to have a baby later in life.  Maybe our experiences will answer some questions or provide options they have not previously considered. If nothing else it gives me a place to collect my thoughts on this adventure.